Leg Drags Against Bigger and Stronger Opponents

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Published October 10, 2013
· Updated March 26, 2015

Passing the guard of a much larger opponent can sometimes be a difficult task. However, if it’s done right, you will be in great shape to win the match. Remember, we want to avoid any locked or consolidated positions when going against larger opponents. Passing from the open guard is definitely ideal, because it gives us the best potential for movement, as well as a wide array of options for guard passes. Trying to pass from half guard or any locked orientation can be done, but it’s going to be more difficult due to the fact that the stronger and larger opponent will be trying to keep you there, so open guard is the way to go. You can learn some fundamentals of guard passing here on my article on Science of Skill.com

Implementing the Technique

As I mentioned earlier, the open guard is literally the best place to pass from against a bigger and stronger opponent. You are starting from a completely un-entangled position, where you can use your speed, mobility, and initiative to blitzkrieg your opponent. The first pass we will look at will be the leg drag pass from the open guard. Not only is this one of my favorite guard passes in general, but it works really well against the bigger guys. It’s basically got everything we are looking for. We are going around/beating the legs, instead of trying to use force to control them. The setup is also very fast and speed is a big factor in this guard pass. Another great aspect of the leg drag pass against a bigger opponent is the fact that it will be difficult for them to scramble and recover guard due to their lesser movement potential, while it gives us smaller guys and opening straight to the back mount. You can see how to set up a leg drag in the video below as well you can learn more ways to learn the leg drag in this article on Jiu Jitsu Labratory.com

Take the Back!

The leg drag pass from the open guard is literally my go-to pass against larger and stronger opponents. It has everything

Getting to the back should be the number one goal of all lightweight grapplers

we are conceptually looking for: Mobility, lots of movement potential, and a path straight to the back mount. Although it does involve entangling your legs a tad bit, it’s an entanglement that does not trap your leg in the orientation because it’s only your knee that’s involved. You can remove the knee at any time you want and at your own discretion. The “rocking chair” back take at the end fits perfectly into the sequence, and allows us to bypass side control completely and go straight to where we want to be. We must make sure that when we drive our knee through to trap the hips that we are staying super tight. If your opponent freaks out when we go to trap the knee and violently turns into us, this sometimes will give us a great opportunity to now dunk their head and spin to their back. If this doesn’t occur, we can just stick to our original rocking chair back take and look to attack from there.